


Hold Me Tight (And Fear Me Not)

by ehmazing



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ballad 39: Tam Lin, Body Horror, F/M, HegelbertWeekend2020, Hegemon Edelgard von Hresvelg, Human/Monster Romance, Shapeshifting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:00:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25122793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ehmazing/pseuds/ehmazing
Summary: “To answer your earlier question, Hubert,” Dimitri said, “I won’t let you die because I won’t let my sister die. And having tried everything else, you’re my—and her—last hope.”
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg/Hubert von Vestra
Comments: 43
Kudos: 206





	Hold Me Tight (And Fear Me Not)

**Author's Note:**

> TW: Body horror, mentions of suicide ideation/purposeful starving attempts. And uh, graphic violence for sure.
> 
> Inspired by the Scottish ballad [Tam Lin](https://tam-lin.org/versions/39A.html) and [Anaïs Mitchell's version.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3yTEUnyYDA) Set in an AM/VW post-canon mashup world.
> 
> \+ [Gorgeous fanart by @kapymui!](https://twitter.com/kapymui/status/1281019986933190656)

**I.  
**

For a brief moment, Hubert thought he might have been wrong. Perhaps the Goddess truly existed. Perhaps She had powers beyond that which mankind could comprehend, and She ruled over the fate of all souls, and in his death, She had sent his to Hell.

But then he focused beyond the ringing in his ears and realized no, not so. If he were in Hell, he would not feel, so keenly, the pain coursing through every part of his body. He must still be alive.

So Goddess and Her mercy were still lies.

“He’s stable, Your Majesty. But it may take a few more days for him to regain full consciousness.”

“Very well. Work as quickly as you can. We can’t afford to give him too long a recovery, but he’s no use if he can’t move around in there.”

Dimitri’s face swam overhead, gold hair dripping over his shoulders, his covered eye a yawning black hole. Hubert tried to reach for his neck, but only succeeded in twitching his hand futilely against the sheets.

“Save your energy, Hubert,” Dimitri said, adjusting his limp arm across his chest as easily as a doll’s. Hubert wished, more than anything, that he had the strength to spit. “I need you with your wits about you. Not much else is going to help.”

_“Hell,”_ Hubert managed to hiss. _“Go to hell.”_

Dimitri’s large hand floated down and covered his eyes, and Hubert sank once more into the dark.

* * *

The manacle was forged of iron. It covered his right arm from wrist to elbow with no visible hinge or clasp. Every part of the surface was etched with a sigil, some of them so close their circles intersected. He tried every spell he could think of, from the simplest wind to the most complex mire, but nothing manifested. The sigils lit up every time, snuffing out his magic like a candle.

So the School of Sorcery wasn’t so useless an institution. The manacle even repelled the dull knife when he tried cutting off the arm.

His room was somewhere underground, judging by the damp that plagued the brick walls. They passed his food through a slot at the bottom of the door, and when too many trays came back still full, two large guards came through the door next. Being held down while a trembling nurse spooned gruel down his throat didn’t touch Hubert’s pride—he’d lost it all the moment he failed to strangle Dimitri upon waking—but it surely didn’t boost his morale.

Aside from the manacle, he was never restrained, not to the wall, not even to the cot despite throwing it at the door at least twice a day. He had only one quilt, but sometimes when he awoke he found it’d been swapped out for a cleaner one while he slept. He wondered if the food he only took bites of had some kind of sedative, for sleep would always come suddenly, brutally, overtaking him against his will.

He could only remember one dream: a summer day, green grass, cloud-peppered blue sky. He was climbing an apple tree, on a quest for one perfect fruit he spied above. From below, someone cried out, _Please, Hubert! Don’t go so high!_ but he paid no heed. He was so close, his hand outstretched, and then the branch cracked under his foot—

“Can you stand?”

Dimitri was tall, but Dedue had to duck to fit himself under the door frame. The two of them looked comical in their fine clothes in the midst of the grimy cell. Hubert turned his head, but remained on his back on the cot.

“Why won’t you let me die?” he drawled.

“You have to prove to me you can stand and walk,” Dimitri continued. His hair was smoothed out of his face for once, his jaw properly shaved. “The cage has helped, but my healers have still been charged. I won’t have anyone else losing their hands.” When Hubert gave no answer, he sighed and nodded at Dedue. “Put him on his feet.”

Hubert considered going limp to make the task harder, but Dedue didn’t seem inclined to give him the half-kind treatment the other jailers did. He hauled Hubert up with one hand cinched around his arm and the other fisted in his hair.

Once Hubert was upright, Dedue grunted, “Dodge,” and then swung his fist directly at his face.

It whistled through the air.

“Very good,” Dimitri said. “I can’t take off the cuff, but I need to know you can still defend yourself. I’m praying you won’t have to, but it seems inevitable.” He stepped back through the door and returned with a bundle he placed carefully on the cot: fresh clothes, a new pair of shoes. “Since I know you’ll refuse these, let me say that her room is in the deepest part beneath Fort Loog, and it’s very cold down there. We can’t risk putting blankets or anything flammable inside, so you’ll need every layer.”

Still pounding from ducking Dedue’s punch, Hubert’s heart ground to a stop.

“Her room,” he repeated.

Dimitri nodded.

“To answer your earlier question, Hubert,” he said, “I won’t let you die because I won’t let my sister die. And having tried everything else, you’re my—and her—last hope.”

* * *

The cell was guarded by iron doors that were clearly made by the same creator of Hubert’s cuff, inscribed with sigils across every inch of the surface. _Smother,_ he could read, _douse._ Every spell known to man that could put out fire.

“I would rather have her outside, give her more room,” Dimitri said as the guards unbolted them, “but she burns through wood just by touching it. The cold seems to help slow her somewhat, and the brick and metal here can’t catch.” He looked at Hubert from the corner of his eye. “There are cats and traps. My soldiers, too, are under instruction to kill any rats that they can. I don’t know if she can even comprehend, but I—”

“If you’re looking to be given an award for exemplary prison conditions, I won’t be the one to give it to you,” Hubert snarled. “You deprive her of an honorable death, and then stuff her into a cellar. Are you going to tell me you padded the rack for her comfort too?”

Dimitri bristled, broad shoulders stiffening as he led the way into the gloomy hall. “Look,” he growled, “I don’t expect any gratitude. But whether you believe me or not, I’ve done my best to help El. I can understand why she would refuse my offer—refuse Byleth’s, too. However, it’s come to the point where it’s unclear if she _won’t_ be helped, or if she _can’t_ be.”

“You didn’t force gruel down her throat?”

Dimitri shook his head. “Impossible, I’m afraid. You’ll see why.”

The hall ended at another iron gate, but with visible seams and a heavy lock bolting the door to the frame. As Dedue held the torch aloft, Hubert could make out a second, smaller gate adjoining it; a cage within a cage, holding only an empty chair prisoner. The rest of the room stretched back far enough that it was still bathed in shadow.

Hubert moved forward without thinking, only to be stopped by Dedue.

“Careful,” he warned. “Go slowly. When rushed, she takes it as an attack.”

Hubert jerked his shoulder out of his grip. “If you really want my cooperation, you’d take care not to refer to Her Majesty as an animal.”

Dimitri and Dedue exchanged a look, and then Dedue reluctantly lowered the torch, offering it to Hubert. In spite of his anger, Hubert obeyed the instruction and slowed his approach to the outer gate. Something about this room unnerved him, set his teeth on edge; he could hardly think of how Edelgard must feel locked inside. When he reached the gate, the light from the torch illuminated a dark stain on the floor by the chair. Hubert’s gut twisted. Why had Dimitri mentioned people losing hands?

“Your Majesty,” he called. No answer. “My lady,” he dared a little louder, and at that there came a sound, a shuffling from further in. Even this close, the light didn’t reach the back wall, couldn’t penetrate the shadows.

Until the shadows shifted, and Hubert realized it was one solid mass all along.

Feathers, black as ink. An enormous clawed foot, or perhaps a hand. A spiny tail that wound around the huddled shape and sprawled further over the wet floor.

A beady, red eye that gleamed in the dark.

“She’s not an animal,” Dimitri agreed, directly behind him and yet a million miles away. “But I don’t think she can be called human anymore, either.”

The red eye stared at them, unblinking. A low growl rumbled, the vibration of it crawling under Hubert’s skin.

Just as well that Dedue made Hubert practice his dodge. It was the only thing that saved him when Edelgard lunged forward, jaws snapping where his head had been a split-second before.

* * *

The problem, Dimitri believed, was that she could not control her transformation. Transformation being an active state, because since the Siege of Enbarr, her body had never kept the same shape for long. Wings, scales, numerous legs and heads and jaws, beaks, talons, spikes. A medic was tasked with keeping records of all the changes. Hubert flipped through weeks— _weeks, for fuck’s sake, I’ve left her for weeks_ —of anatomical sketches, some dated hours apart. Some only partial drawings, whatever the artist could glimpse, because if Edelgard was not attacking whoever came close, she was huddled at the back of the room, as they found her. Wasting away.

“Those corrupted by only one Crest never live long enough to study,” Dimitri said, rubbing tiredly at his good eye, “so we’re unsure if this is a normal process, or a result of her unique condition. Regardless, her body makes her almost impossible to capture or chain. She simply changes form and slips away. Force-feeding is out of the question. We leave barrels of water inside, but I can’t tell if she drinks any or if it simply evaporates over time. I’ve been down there every day; I can tell she’s getting weaker, more lethargic. I talk to her, but I have no idea whether she can understand me. It may be that her mind is just as unstable as the rest of her, and trying to reason with such a creature is futile.”

_“A creature.”_ Hubert slammed the book shut. “If you really want to save her, start by acknowledging that she is still your equal. Not even in war did you give her that courtesy.”

Dimitri’s face hardened. “El is my only family. I offered her mercy. She was the one who chose this end.”

“And what of _her_ chosen family? Did you offer them mercy? _”_

Dimitri stood, furious, opening his mouth to rebut, but Dedue cut in.

“You will have three months to try,” he told Hubert. “She might not recover fully, but she must be stable. She must eat and drink regularly, and submit to treatments from healers and doctors. If anyone is injured, you will lose time. If anyone is killed, she’ll be put down immediately.”

Ice flooded Hubert’s veins. “And me?”

Dedue nodded. “You’ll die with her, as you want.”

Dimitri looked alarmed, but Hubert was almost ashamed of the relief he felt from the words. He nodded back at Dedue.

“In three months, though, if she heals,” Hubert said slowly. “What then?”

He studied him closely, but Dedue’s expression was inscrutable.

“Then we evaluate the situation in three months,” was his only answer. “For now, you should focus on just getting inside, and staying alive there.”

* * *

His provisions: a set of wide, tall candles; dry foods to eat between the meals brought down; a notebook and pencil to write his observations; a long, slim rod with a prong at the end, the kind used to spear food to train wyverns; and a shield sigil, for protection.

He was told he could stay down there as long as he liked, but if he wanted to sleep they wouldn’t bend the rule on blankets. The Crest of Flames had too powerful a range.

Hubert sat in the chair and placed the first candle on the ground in front of him, but paused before striking the match. Edelgard hadn’t moved when the guards escorted him to the inner cage, but there was a scraping sound from her corner when they set their torches in the sconces.

“Is it the light, my lady?” he called softly. “Does it hurt you?”

No answer. Still, Hubert tucked the matches back into his pocket. It was difficult, but he could make out her shape enough to guess where she was. Her tail seemed to be intact, but with more spikes than he last remembered.

“Dimitri wouldn’t say what he talks to you about. Just a litany of dull stories and apologies, I imagine.” Hubert eased back in the chair. “You know I’m not much better for idle conversation. Never have been. But I’ll only make one apology.” He swallowed. “I’m sorry that I left you, my lady. I should have stayed with you to the end, and I will never forgive myself for it.”

He could only make out the sound of distant breathing.

“But whether it’s a blessing or curse, we’re together again. No matter what happens from now on, I’ll stay with you. I’ll protect you.” He felt his boot for the dagger he slipped from the guard. “And I will not let you die by their hands.”

A huff, directly at his right side. Hubert froze. Slowly, he turned his head to meet the two red eyes.

They were round and spaced wide apart like those of a snake, but there was a narrow snout at the end and some kind of spiny ruff around the neck. Of all features, Edelgard kept her white hair—it hung in a limp curtain around the chimerical face, greasy at the ends. Her shoulders had a flat, human shape, but her spine was hunched like an ape’s, her long arms supporting her weight at the knuckles.

The snout pressed against the bars. Inhaled. Hubert didn’t move a muscle.

“My lady,” he whispered without thinking. The words cracked in his throat.

Edelgard gave one more huff before retreating back to the corner.

The rest of the first week passed exactly the same.

* * *

She didn’t drink water, of that Hubert was certain. He watched her at all hours, only exiting the cells to relieve himself. He’d gone so long in the dark that even the dullest torchlight felt as bright as day. He bathed only when the greasiness of his hair was irritating enough to be distracting, because he couldn’t afford to be distracted. Edelgard was weakening, but she was still deadly at a leap.

He talked to her at times, but found he had little to say. What _was_ there to say? The war was over. Adrestia defeated, their companions all dead or traitors. Even in happier days, when alone, they had never been the chattering sort. All of his most peaceful memories had been quiet ones, days where they read side-by-side in the shade or watched the waters of the lake roll against the dock. He could remember watching her paint as a girl, her tiny hand carefully gripping a brush to create each floppy petal of a flower.

Sometimes Edelgard’s hands had fingers, and sometimes they became paws. Regardless, they were always sharp.

By the second week, Hubert was more confident in his assessments. She was indeed sensitive to light, so he instructed the guards to douse their torches when they brought her meals. At first, they brought her a huge, strange array: porridges, roast fowl, fruits, an entire plate of nothing but cakes. Familiar foods, human foods.

Hubert finally refused the platters at the door: “She doesn't like the smell of it, and the portions are wrong for her size. Butcher a goat and bring it down. Don’t drain all of the blood.”

They tossed the carcass in and hurriedly locked the gates. As soon as the guards retreated, Edelgard prowled forward, her crocodile-like head hovering over the gutted stomach.

Ravenously, she began to eat. Hubert could have wept from relief.

Still, she gave no sign that she knew or understood him. Dimitri warned him that she never might: “She could speak when she first transformed, but the longer she remained in that state, the less control she retained. By the time the battle ended, she could only howl.” Hubert shook with fury at the image of it.

“I would have stopped you,” he insisted, offering a hunk of butchered pig to her from the end of the rod. “Pardon my insolence, Your Majesty, but that was reckless and stupid. Unleashing both of your Crests could’ve killed you, and where would that have left our soldiers? I have told you, time and again, that your penchant for martyrdom serves no one.”

Edelgard pulled the meat from the prong with a growl, gulped it down her long, swan-like throat. Her eyes were small that day, almost familiar. She watched him retract the rod and spear the next morsel, thick drool dripping down her jaw. She leaned forward when he moved to feed her again.

On impulse, Hubert withheld the rod just out of range.

“Is that why you did it?” he demanded. “Because I wasn’t there to say no?”

Edelgard growled again, still looking at the meat. He pulled it back further and she pressed against his cage, tail lashing against the cell bars.

“Answer me first,” he insisted. Her jaws snapped. “If I told you not to, would you still have done this to yourself?”

Edelgard’s eyes flashed. And then, for a split second, the red dimmed. From deep in her throat, she let out a long, breathy sound. A hiss.

Or was it, ' _Yes'?_

Her tail wormed through the cell bars and seized the end of the spear. With one bite, she grabbed the meat and stalked away.

* * *

At the end of the first month, Hubert made up his mind.

“The problem is, my lady,” he told Edelgard as he wrestled with the lock, “that they’re afraid of you. Thus, they don’t want to challenge you. They think your Crests have won, and we should therefore work around the problem instead of facing it directly.”

At last, the door of his inner cage was free. Hubert swung it carefully open.

“But you don’t frighten me. I know that you’re capable of anything you set your mind to, and if you set your mind to getting out of this, you will.” He stepped out, shield sigil at the ready. “So like it or not, I think it’s time you were challenged.”

The only warning he got was the sound of talons scraping against the ground.

In truth, Hubert couldn’t remember which blow was the one that nearly killed him. The Siege of Enbarr felt like a distant memory, something his body knew but his mind never captured. The pains lingered—he woke with sore ribs, found himself favoring his left leg over his right—but Dimitri’s healers had done well enough that there were no telltale scars.

Edelgard, though, knew exactly where his weaknesses were. Her arm lashed out at his right leg. Her flank barreled into his stomach, rendering him gasping. He pushed her back, the glowing sigil illuminating the grey scales on her face as he used it to barrel her aside, but with twin roars of her two vulture-like heads she vaulted up and down the wall and sank her talons into his shoulders, knocking him to the floor.

Her breath was hot and sour, stinking of raw meat. Hubert moved his head just in time to avoid having his nose clipped off.

“Your Majesty,” he snarled, managing to get an elbow at the juncture of one neck, “you’re as quick as ever. Commendable.”

With his other hand, he slashed the dagger across her chest. Just a surface cut, but enough to shock her into releasing him, make her back away. Hubert wasted no time in rolling to his feet and giving chase. He dodged a swipe of her claws and managed to spin behind her. Taking hold of one leathery wing, he scuttled up her back as she thrashed and yowled, trying to throw him off.

“Calm down,” he shouted, holding onto her spines for dear life. “An angry head never wins a bout.”

Edelgard stilled for a moment. Then she tucked her heads to her chest and rolled forward, launching him across the room.

Head spinning, Hubert crawled on his hands and knees, not caring of how the rough brick chafed his palms. He heaved the gate door shut behind him just before Edelgard slammed into it, jaws snapping, eyes scarlet and wild. She bit the bars, flapped her wings, barreled against the door hard enough to make the foundations shake, but she couldn’t break through. Hubert’s chest heaved as he caught his breath, his back pressed hard against the wall. His shoulder ached where her talons had pierced through.

After what felt like ages, Edelgard finally gave up. With one final screech, she abandoned his cage and made her way to the water barrels. Her two heads plunged in, drinking deeply, before she returned to her corner, clearly exhausted.

“See?” Hubert wheezed, clutching his own burning chest. “Not so hard, was it?”

* * *

**II.  
**

There was an old saying that if you had no spear to fight a wolf, your only defense was to bite it back. Hubert wasn’t sure of its veracity, but the strategy had some success with Edelgard. If she was tired from sparring, she wouldn’t attack without warning. If she thought of him as an equal predator instead of prey, she wouldn’t attack at all. At the very least, forcing her to exercise got her to eat and drink at more regular intervals. Her ribs filled out, her coat became less dull.

Dimitri scratched at his chin as he looked through the notes. “But she hasn’t burned you?”

“No.”

“Her Crest was still very active by the time we healed you. She was too hot to even touch.”

Hubert shrugged. “Perhaps it’s calming down.”

“I doubt it. Her rate of transformation hasn’t changed.” Dimitri sighed and handed back the papers. “But well done. Your next task will be to get her to sit still, so that she can be examined.”

The idea brought up unpleasant images: masked figures swarming around a little girl’s room, Edelgard’s distant expression as she obeyed instructions to raise her arms, be measured, be weighed, the scars on her skinny legs still pink and livid.

“Examined by whom, and for what?” Hubert ground out.

Dimitri frowned. “By healers, obviously. Annette has a team from the School of Sorcery who assisted with her capture, and now they’re looking into a cure. But they can’t do much if they can’t study her up close.”

“Fine. But on one condition.” Hubert leaned over the desk, over Dimitri. “You must investigate every person who’s taken an interest in her. Thoroughly. Even if you’ve known them for years. And I must be present any time someone wants to examine her, or they won’t be allowed access at all.”

Dimitri raised an eyebrow at him. “Your devotion is admirable, Hubert, but I must warn you to curb your expectations. I don’t want to give you too much hope.”

For the first time in months, Hubert laughed.

“Don’t worry,” he said as he strode out, “you have absolutely no impact on my hope.”

* * *

The problem with getting Edelgard to hold still was that aside from food, Hubert knew of nothing that would motivate her. She still gave no indication that she understood him, so trying to teach her commands seemed futile. She allowed him to enter the inner cage without attacking, but she was on edge the whole time, watching him with slitted eyes, six lizard-like legs curled beneath her. Whenever he wandered too close, she tensed, a low growl warning him to keep his distance.

“You may have your space, my lady,” he reassured her, setting up the chair and a candle in the opposite corner. “I have work to do, besides.”

He didn’t trust Dimitri with Shambhala, so had turned to his next best option. Hubert was fairly impressed when a guard passed him a note with the House Riegan seal, proving there was a spy network out there who posed a worthy rival. As he pored over the smuggled notes on the experiments of House Ordelia, he kept one eye on Edelgard as she curled into a tight ball, tucking her head down to sleep. Her hair was practically grey with dirt now, matted into ropes. He longed to wash it, comb it neat again.

The hours blurred underground, as they always did. His candle was nearly burnt to the base when Hubert looked up and almost dropped his notes in shock.

Edelgard had a human face.

Edelgard had _her_ face: her high cheeks, delicate mouth, slim nose. Her eyes that were lined underneath, far too early for a woman of her age. Her chin, her forehead, every feature Hubert knew better than he knew his own, could draw from memory if only his hand was skilled enough for a pen.

Unbidden, a warm tear rolled down the side of his nose. Before the Siege, he had reckoned with the fact that he might never see that face again. He had gone into battle believing it. Had died believing it.

Soundlessly, he rose from his chair. He timed each footstep with her breath until he was standing before her, close enough to touch. He laid his shaking hand on her cheek and yes, it was skin, smooth skin. Feathers sprouted from it behind her ears, and they too were soft as he stroked her head. Her lips parted, a sigh escaping.

Hubert didn’t think it through—didn’t think at all. It was instinct that made him kneel, made him curl a finger under Edelgard’s chin and kiss the corner of her mouth.

And when her eyes opened, red, terrified, and her lizard-like hand seized him by the throat, he found he still didn’t regret it.

* * *

It had been observed before: the rare emergence of her original body. Never whole, never for long, but Dimitri’s researchers had sketched Edelgard’s bare legs poking out from a mass of scales, her posture unmistakably human even under thick plates and furs. It bolstered their theories that she could be cured. They only had to find a means to make her body take on its natural shape all at once, and stay that way.

_My research on Crest removal hasn’t yet yielded solid results,_ Claude wrote. _On one hand, it might cure her immediately. On the other hand, the Crest of Flames and the Crest of Seiros might be balancing each other, and taking one away in this state might do irreparable damage to the other. I’m sorry, but it will take more than a few weeks to look into further._

Hubert considered going to his only other lead, but even writing the words ‘Your Holiness’ made him taste bile. So many months to surrender, yet Rhea had never offered them a cure. He had no intention of begging Byleth to find one in her stead.

The second month went on. Each day Hubert set his chair a little closer, each day Edelgard relaxed a little quicker. By the third week he was able to sit next to her, close enough to pet her feathered, hunched back. Curious, plantlike tendrils had sprouted along her collarbone. When they moved, the effect was almost lulling, like watching grass bend in the wind.

“I keep having the same dream,” Hubert told her, noting the curve of her hip looked familiar today. “I’m in the palace orchard—the one on the west hillside, where you used to race your sisters—trying to reach an apple. Someone warns me, but I keep climbing, and then the branch breaks under my foot and I fall. I don’t know if it really happened or not. Do you remember something like that, my lady? Was it you who tried to call me down?”

Edelgard shifted, catlike muzzle resting on her crossed arms. She stiffened when Hubert carefully stroked her side, but on the second pass she closed her eyes.

“What do you dream of?” he asked. Some of the tendrils brushed against his hand, weaving lazily through his fingers. “Better things, I hope, than you used to.”

One eye cracked open, peering at him from under lashes as long and thick as a cow’s. Hubert kept petting her, feeling her chest rise and fall steadily, her heartbeat slow. Her heart, still beating—he refused to think it didn’t mean something. If she was truly lost, she’d be like Byleth, wouldn’t she? Dead inside, a corrupted Crest in a vessel body.

“You can sleep,” Hubert promised her. The tendrils withered, losing their thorns as they twisted and reformed into slender quills. “I’ll be here.”

The eye watched him, wary, until she turned her head and slipped under.

* * *

Hubert trusted no one, but when Annette agreed to enter the cage without guards, without weapons, he gave her a little more respect. Edelgard was restless, growling, but Annette followed his instructions to the letter.

“Hello,” she said softly, keeping still as Edelgard’s fangs hovered over her shoulder. “I’m happy to see you look better. And a little smaller!”

Hubert gaped. Edelgard filled the cell from floor to ceiling that morning, her second set of arms easily spanning from wall to wall. “She was larger than this?”

Annette nodded, scrunching her nose when she smelled Edelgard’s breath as she was sniffed. “Her first form was thin, but very tall. Didn’t help that she could fly, too.” Once Edelgard retreated, Annette reached for her bag, taking out her toolkit in preparation. “So, uh, do whatever it is that you do and get her to sit, if you please?”

Hubert picked up the rod. To “get” Edelgard to sit was a finicky process achieved by holding raw meat low to the ground and pushing on her to stay crouched there after she gobbled it up. Hubert felt oddly pained as he watched her eat off the floor while Annette examined her cloven feet, as though embarrassed on his lady’s behalf. Yet more humiliations she didn’t deserve: having her crusted eyes examined, her yellow teeth counted, her pulse taken from underneath her thick fur.

When Annette reached for her white hair, he finally snapped.

“Enough. Don’t touch her.”

Both women froze: Annette with her hand outstretched, the scissors still open, Edelgard hunched over the bone she’d been gnawing clean. She began growling again, shuffling away from Annette and closer to him.

“I need a sample,” Annette insisted. “It’s the only part of her that remains consistent. It might reveal something.”

“It’s hair.” As the growling continued, Hubert angled the rod so that it blocked Annette from Edelgard’s reach, but also blocked Edelgard from Annette’s. “It’s not complicated. There’s no blood in it, so it’s not affected by the Crests.”

“We don’t know that, Hubert.” Annette’s round face pinched in a frown as she lowered her arm. “We don’t know how she could live for so long without food. We don’t know why she could speak at first, but can’t anymore. We don’t know why her body keeps changing, whether she’s choosing to make it so or not, whether it will ever stop. We don’t know anything.” Closing the scissors, she grasped them by the blade to offer them to him. “I won’t touch her. Just hand the sample back to me, and I’ll be done.”

Edelgard snapped at the rod, teeth clamping on the metal. Hubert stared at Annette’s hand, miserable.

“Listen, my lady,” he said, ushering Edelgard further back, scissors in hand. “Do you remember when you were afraid to take your medicine? So I took it too, to prove it was safe?” Hubert’s own hair reached his ears now. It was easy to take a piece and snip it off at the side, Edelgard’s six eyes watching as the black lock drifted to the floor. “There. See? It won’t hurt.”

She growled louder as he came close. He took the first matted end he saw and managed to clip it just before she swiped.

“Very good. She’s done,” he told her. He walked slowly backwards to reach Annette, kicking the rest of the meat towards Edelgard as he did.

Annette tucked the hunk of hair into a cloth and folded it up with the rest of her supplies. As Hubert led her to the door, she glanced back at Edelgard, who was now wholly occupied with finishing her meal.

“You’re awfully pale, Hubert,” she said. “You should try to see the sun now and then.”

“I’ll leave this place when she does.”

Annette bit her lip. “I know Dimitri is hopeful, but…you have to consider that might never be possible.”

Hubert stared her down. “Then I don’t know why you bothered keeping us alive in the first place. To Her Majesty, life in a cage would be a fate worse than death.”

“You don’t—”

“I do know that.” He locked the gate between them, the iron latch clanging shut. “I don’t know much else, but I do know that.”

* * *

Familiarity only went so far. Edelgard developed a sore on one leg that wouldn’t go away no matter what shape the leg took on. After she almost bit off the finger of the healer Dimitri sent down, there was no option but to sedate her. Hubert watched the potion take effect, her body grow limp and slump by slow degrees to the floor. She had human hands that day. He held them as the healer and doctor worked together to clean and bandage it after the healing spell was performed.

He stayed close as she awoke, watching her body ripple and shift. The hands lengthened and hardened, skin scabbing over. Her tri-fold face morphed back into one, her true one. When she opened her eyes he almost believed, for a moment, that he saw violet.

Then she was fully awake. Her bandaged leg twitched, talons scraping as she stood.

Hubert was too close to run. He was tossed to the ground with a swing of her tail, pinned easily under her. He didn’t fight. He was so, so tired of fighting.

“You know me. I know that you know me.”

It was hard to speak with her massive arm crushing his chest, but Hubert held her off with all his strength. Edelgard’s face might have been human, but her teeth were still razor-sharp and too many, her tongue black and forked at the tip.

“Why else haven’t you burned me, my lady?” he gasped, kicking when her other hand tried to pin his legs too. “Why haven’t you used your Crests? You know who I am. You know you’d never hurt me.”

She hissed. Her hand pressed down with renewed force; Hubert’s elbows buckled, a claw glancing against the underside of his jaw. Her skin was hot, as Dimitri described, but did her Crest manifest from her hands still? Or did she breathe fire, like a dragon?

“It’s alright.” Hubert had no strength left. He looked into her eyes, feeling the ache in his ribs as she pushed down on his chest. “I told you: I’ll stay with you. I’m not afraid.”

She bent down, her nose brushing against the side of his neck. All he could see was red. He waited for her teeth to sink in, for his blood to spill across the floor.

Instead, Edelgard slowly lowered herself down on top of him. She tucked her head between his neck and shoulder, inhaling his scent. Her tongue lapped once against his jaw. Carefully, Hubert freed his hands to pet her again. She leaned into it, her broad chest rumbling against his.

“You know me,” Hubert choked. “My lady. _My lady.”_

This time, the hiss could be nothing else but a yes.

* * *

Hubert dreamed: a summer day, green grass, cloud-peppered blue sky. The apple boughs swayed overhead, leaves dancing in the sunlight. He felt sleepy and warm, comforted by the body draped over his chest.

_“It won’t last.”_

He looked down to find Edelgard had pushed herself up, her face hovering inches from his. Her eyes were as round and red as the apples above. Her brown hair had been chopped in the front, one piece much shorter than the rest. Hubert brushed it back for her. Some of her feathers fell away as he did.

_“Hubert, hurry,”_ she urged him, her voice ragged. _“I can’t make it last.”_

“Make what last?” he asked her, but Edelgard didn’t answer. She sat up fully, straddling his chest, hands grasping his shoulders hard.

_“Hubert, wake up,”_ she barked. _“Hubert._ Hubert!”

He opened his eyes.

Edelgard was on top of him, as she had been for the last few hours. She was white as bone. Her mangy hair fell in a curtain over her chest. She was naked, her skin pebbled from the wet chill of the underground cell. She had no feathers or fur or scales. She had two arms and two legs. She had a face with a slim nose and a soft mouth. She was looking at him, fully conscious.

She was herself.

Hubert gripped her wrists, felt the curve of her muscled forearms as her arms shook. She wasn’t too heavy, but he could barely breathe as he sat up, shifting her into his lap.

“My lady?” he whispered, touching her smooth back, her hard collarbone. Edelgard’s arms shook harder, her nails digging into his biceps. Her skin was hotter than it should be. Her throat clenched as she spoke.

“Won’t,” she choked out, “last. Too hard. Hurts to stay in one for long.” When she gagged, smoke escaped from her mouth. “Hubert. Must leave. Leave me.”

“No,” he growled. He cupped her face, pressed his forehead to her burning one. “No, no, never. _Never.”_

“Won’t last—”

“It will. It will, you will, I'll make it so. I’ll get you back.” She shook violently, limbs spasming; he wound his arms around her to hold her in place. Her eyes glazed over, the color darkening. “Do you understand, my lady? Edelgard?”

“Hubert,” she whispered one more time, before the plates erupted from her skin and the room filled with smoke.

* * *

**III.  
**

Dimitri threw the letter down, snarling, “Was this your doing?”

Hubert watched the page drift slowly to the floor, landing silently at his feet.

“How exactly would I—a dead man, a political prisoner stored in the deepest dungeon of the most secure fort on the continent—get word to Claude von Riegan?”

“I have no blessed idea!” Dimitri yelled. He whirled to face the Alliance commander at the door. “How did he get word to Claude von Riegan?” he demanded.

“I was only tasked with the delivery, Your Majesty,” Judith answered drily. “Lord Riegan’s methods are Lord Riegan’s business.” She nodded to the two hooded prisoners still sitting on the floor of the office. _Silence,_ the sigils stitched in the burlap read. “Want them unchained, moved to the dungeons, or…?”

“Keep them chained,” Hubert said. “They’re slippery otherwise.”

“Don’t I know it,” Judith sighed. She seized the prisoners by their collars to haul them to their feet. “Made the trip north much more eventful than I would’ve liked.”

Without ceremony, she tugged off the hoods. The two Agarthans flinched from the sudden flood of light and sound, their grey skin marred with half-healed bruises. The younger one immediately tried to run, but Judith caught him with one hand and little effort, forcing him against the wall. The elder only hissed when Hubert approached, red eyes squinting up at him.

“Remember me?” he said.

“Hm. The little errand dog,” the old woman growled. Her eyes landed on the edge of the iron cuff peeking out from his sleeve. “With his tail clipped, no less.”

Hubert felt his blood rush as he slammed her into the desk; Dimitri yelped, jumping away as his papers were sent into the air, his inkwell overturned. The Agarthan’s throat warped under Hubert’s hand, squirming like a thick snake, but apparently in order to shift, they had to fully breathe.

Hubert smiled. “The same dog, with the same teeth.”

The Agarthan only gargled back.

“Listen closely,” he said, leaning over her. “You will have the mercy of a quick, painless death. A favor I will grant to no others of your kind. Tell us how to remove her Crests.”

He eased his hand enough to let her grunt, “I don’t know. It never mattered if we could remove them, so Thales didn’t have us try.” Her neck warped again, but still she couldn’t transform. “She was designed that way. Two Crests to grant power that would eventually eat itself up. No sense in letting the brat rule forever.”

Dimitri’s face went pale.

“But El could control it,” he said. “We saw her, we fought her! She can still control it now, even if for only a few moments. There has to be a way!”

“What’s the use?” The Agarthan’s smile was too wide for her mouth, too sharp for her thin lips. “Either she will die quickly as a beast, or die quickly as a girl. You should save your mercy and slit her throat with it.”

Dimitri shouted something at him, but Hubert only heard ringing in his ears. Dedue had to pull the dagger from his hand, the blade slick with the old woman’s black blood. She was still gagging on it as her body slid from the desk, falling to Hubert’s feet.

“And this one?” Judith called, still pinning the younger. His red eyes were as wide as a rabbit’s, his skinny limbs thrashing as Hubert approached.

“Wait, wait,” he begged. “M-maybe the Crests can’t be removed, but they could be stabilized. The same way a dragon’s blood grants a dragon’s Crest, maybe giving her our blood would settle the Crest we made.”

“You want me,” Hubert said slowly, “to pour your filthy blood into my lady’s veins? To fill her with more of your disgusting magic? To make her into another experiment?”

“I’d rather snap the neck, if you don’t mind,” Judith warned him. “Whatever they’re made of, it rots fast and stinks. Sorry, Your Majesty, but this carpet is ruined.”

“Hubert, stand down,” Dimitri ordered. “You’re exhausted, and your emotions have gotten the better of you. Leave him be. Even if he doesn’t have an answer to El’s problem, there might be other information we can use.”

“To what end?” Hubert rounded on Dimitri. “To curb the Church? No, you don’t want that. To dismantle Crests? No, you don’t want that either. Why not speak plainly, _Your Majesty?”_ He injected as much venom as he could into the words. “You want to cure Edelgard just so you can at last measure her neck for a collar and chain.”

Dimitri rounded the desk, and for a moment Hubert thought he was actually going to hit him. He wanted Dimitri to: any excuse to claw that remaining eye from its socket.

But a broad arm came down between them, stopping the fight before it began.

“Hubert,” Dedue said. “Come with me.”

His firm hold on Hubert’s cuffed arm left him no choice.

* * *

The ramparts of Fort Loog made Hubert dizzy—not only from their height, but from the biting wind that whisked past, from the glare of the white sun that hung behind the clouds. He couldn’t remember the last time he stood outside in fresh air. Nor could he remember the last time he stood on a castle rampart without looking into the distance, every muscle stiff as he waited for an attack.

“You won’t appreciate it,” Dedue began, “but I feel a responsibility for you. I was the one, you see, who suggested to Dimitri that maybe her memory would be jogged by something familiar. At the time I only thought that she might fare better in Enbarr than in Fhirdiad, but then you were found among the wounded, and Dimitri made the choice to bring you both.”

“How magnanimous of you,” Hubert grunted.

Dedue shrugged. “Trust me, I too think you’d both be better off dead. But my lord gave the order. Whether I agreed with the choice or not, it wasn’t my place to refuse. I helped transport you north. I helped Annette and the mages construct the cage. I made sure you would recover, despite your best efforts not to.”

“So what? You want me to repay your favors?”

The wind whipped at Dedue’s white hair, at his solemn, scarred face. “Yes. In exchange for saving your life, I want you to keep your humanity.”

A dry laugh spilled out from Hubert’s mouth. “Much too late for that.”

“It’s no use trying to fool me.” Dedue turned his head, looking out over the landscape. Mid-autumn and already the foothills of Fhirdiad were buried in snow. “You mistake your anger for malice and your desperation for callous cruelty. You think that war has made you an evil man, when it has only made you a more fearful one. Lady Edelgard’s suffering has only poured salt in your festering wounds.” He glanced at Hubert with one pale blue eye. “Acknowledge your emotions. Remain rational. Do not make her suffer more.”

The snowy hills blurred together, all one wide, white expanse. The cold stung, making Hubert’s eyes water.

“You know nothing of her suffering,” he said.

“No.” Dedue leaned against the rampart, unafraid of the height, unafraid of the fall. “But I know what it’s like to lose someone before your very eyes. To watch them fade away without dying. To love them in spite of their claws.”

The flags of the castle danced on their poles, bright blue and silver rippling. Faerghus: whether snowy or sunny, from sea to sea, every part of the land was Faerghus now.

“I don’t imagine how your lady suffers. I only understand how you do.”

Hubert left him there, with the sky and the air that was no longer his to breathe.

* * *

She could manage it for a moment. Then a minute. A few minutes. Half an hour. An hour entire. It lasted longer if she only changed partially: a torso with a griffin’s feathered legs, a manticore with a woman’s face and a lion’s mane. Sometimes, she managed to speak, but not with her voice—it sounded more like every beast, every creature in her blood trying to claw out of her throat at once, the words coming in growling choruses, in herds.

The longest form she could hold was the one the Blue Lions called her first: a towering figure with thick, hanging arms and twisted fingers, an armored shell like a beetle’s covering her from abdomen to ankle. She could float in what little space there was between her head and the ceiling, but she preferred to stay on the ground, coiled up like a snake. It was the form she took when Hubert finally convinced her to let him wash her hair.

“It should never have gotten to this point,” he scolded as he worked at the mangled ends with a comb. “No rats in this dungeon, but that doesn’t mean an absence of lice.”

Edelgard hummed as he gently massaged her scalp, taking care around the stumps of the black antlers that sprouted near her forehead. It was too harsh to be called a purr, but it was a sound she only made when content. When he finished, he twisted her hair into a knot, hoping it was loose enough to dry.

_**“Hubert?”** _

He slid from her back, landing easily on the floor. “Yes?”

One huge hand hovered over him. With care, a talon glanced against his cheek. Edelgard’s gleaming eyes looked soft. Sad.

_**“Sorry,”**_ she said.

He rubbed the talon, ran his hand along the leathery skin between her fingers. “For what?”

She didn’t answer. Only pulled her hand away and folded into herself, shell becoming spikes becoming skin becoming hide, becoming…becoming…

* * *

Three months and he’d done it. Edelgard ate and drank. She let the doctors and healers poke and prod her. The only person she ever injured was himself, and neither of them were going to confess so. Dimitri showed him the blueprints for a new facility: above-ground, enough space to run, to fly. Looking at it made Hubert feel so sick that it took all his willpower not to tear every page to shreds.

But in spite of regaining some control, in spite of her progress, Edelgard began to wilt.

She paced the length of the cell. She ate her food and spat it back up again. Fur fell from her back in clumps, scales flaked away and left bare, dried skin beneath. She changed so many times in a day that it was hopeless to keep track of them all. She was a dark shadow, constantly shifting, never resting.

_**“Hurts,”**_ she’d croak to Hubert. _**“Hurts when I stop.”**_

“You don’t have to stop,” he reassured her, rubbing those huge hands. “Change however you like, into whatever you want. I’ll still stay.”

She shook her head, the leaves of her neck swaying with the motion. _**“Shouldn’t. Won’t last. Order you.”**_

“I hate to remind you, my lady, but with the Empire dissolved, we’ve both lost our titles. Technically, you have no say in what I do anymore.”

She made a strange noise: too pained to be a laugh, too brief to be a moan. Her tail shrank and then grew, coiling around his legs. She bent down and rubbed her rough, armored cheek against his.

The next morning, she wouldn’t get up. Her chest rose and fell rapidly, her breathing quickened even though judging by the stink of the uneaten cow in the corner, she’d lain there for hours. Hubert mopped her damp hair from her forehead, felt the rapid pulse in her thick neck.

“I’ll get Dimitri,” he insisted. “I’ll get Annette. I’ll get someone down here, and they’ll be able to—”

_**“No,”**_ she wheezed. She moved just enough to make a space between her curled hand and her chest. _**“Stay.”**_

An offering. A nap on an inconsequential day. An easy passing.

“My lady,” Hubert managed, even as the tears began to bud in his eyes, blurring the sight of her pale face in the midst of her broken, oil-black body. “I’m sorry. But one of us has to be rational.”

Leaving her there, alone in the cage, was harder than leaving her before the Siege.

* * *

The young Agarthan sported not one, but four iron cuffs: one for each limb. He jumped when he saw Hubert’s face through the door grate and scuttled away when he entered the cell.

“Don’t worry,” Hubert said, marching him out and past the felled guards. “Quick and painless, just as promised.”

“I-It’s only a theory,” the Agarthan stammered as they wound through the dungeon passages, heading deeper with each turn. “If it doesn’t kill her, it might still have a permanent effect. The shifting could be controlled, but it would never be erased. She’d always be a monster.”

“She’s not a monster now, and never has been,” Hubert seethed. “Never will be.”

He locked the gate behind them, forced the Agarthan to his knees. Next to Edelgard, the similarities were impossible to overlook: the color of the eyes, the dull pallor of the skin. Edelgard stiffly raised her head, looking from him to the Agarthan, confused.

“I know I promised that the path would be cleared,” Hubert told her. “I’m afraid I have to break that promise, my lady.” He pulled the Agarthan’s head back by the hair, heard him whimper as his throat was bared. “Blood must be spilt.”

Slowly, she pushed herself up, wings twitching as she crawled forward. She sniffed the Agarthan, her breath ruffling his greasy hair.

_**“Don’t want to.”**_ It took Hubert a moment to realize she was addressing the Agarthan, not him. _**“War over.”**_

The Agarthan let out a squeaky, hysterical laugh. “Yes, Thales is dead. But it’s far from over. Your Alliance rat won’t get far without help, and no matter the flag, this land still belongs to us, will one day come back to—”

The strange ruff around Edelgard’s neck twitched once, twice, and then sprang around her head. A whole mouth with three jaws, endless ridges of teeth. With one motion, she ripped the Agarthan’s head from his neck and swallowed it whole. Quick and painless.

“It might hurt,” Hubert told her, stroking through her hair as she bent down to lap the black blood pouring from the open veins. Edelgard made a grunting noise. A laugh.

_**“Good.”**_ She began to tear the flesh from the body, gulping it down. _**“Need a challenge.”**_

* * *

It might have been hours, or days. They laid together, Hubert tucked against her hard chest, playing idly with the down that sprouted over her ribs. Edelgard was so warm that he felt sweat trap his shirt to his back, but he pressed closer, basked in it.

_**“Your dream,”**_ she said, many voices no louder than a sigh, _**“in the orchard.**_ _**Summer, 1170. Broke your ankle.”**_

“You're lying,” he dared her. “I have no memory of this.”

_**“Why? Embarrassed?**_ ”

“I’m not.”

_**“Hm. Embarrassed.”** _

“I am not!”

_**“Think you—”**_ Edelgard gasped suddenly, going rigid. The soft feathers under Hubert’s hand hardened, flaking off as patches of charcoal skin. _**“Think you—”**_ she hissed, _ **“—think…oh…”**_

By instinct, Hubert grabbed her, pulling them chest to chest. Under his hands, he felt her spine twist, each vertebrae cracking as loud as a log in a fire. She moaned as she kicked, legs molting from claws to paws to hooves to webbed toes like a bat, long toes like a bird. Her back arched again and she cried out, rolling up and pulling Hubert with her.

Her skin was slimy, shiny, dry and cracked and calloused. It was hotter than a forge. It was hot enough to burn, and Hubert smelled his smoldering shirt, felt his skin begin to blister.

He held on. Her hands raked over his back, gouging deep into his skin, deep enough that he felt blood pooling. He held on. Her wings flapped, sending them a few feet into the air before she crashed, writhing where she fell, screaming loud enough that his head hurt from the sound. He held on. She snarled and bit at the air, saliva burning the brick where it landed. The source of heat was deep within her chest, and her veins glowed red around it. When she next cried out, a ball of fire billowed from her jaws, scorching his face.

He held on.

She molted from skin to skin to skin. She was rough and smooth and soft and piercing. His back bled, his arms ached, his skin festered, but Hubert wound his arms around her neck, pressed his lips to her cheek, her chin, her maw. He fisted his hands in her silky hair. He had no idea how long he held her, how long it took for her last shell to rot away, for her small, cold body to finally stop moving.

A shaking hand felt down his arm, gripped the edge of the cuff. With a jerk, she snapped it in two, bent halves clattering to the ground.

“Hubert,” Edelgard said. One voice, one mouth. Dry lips that moved against his neck. “I still would have done it, even if you’d told me not to.”

“I know, my lady.” He traced her grey-tipped fingers, looked into her red eyes. “I just couldn’t let you off so easily.”

Edelgard’s mouth tasted of blood, salty, foul. He kissed her anyway.

* * *

Dedue rarely came by this hall so late at night, but he’d been restless. The worsening weather made his old wounds ache. Walking stretched his legs and cleared his head, and soon it would be too cold to venture out, so he may as well find a better route inside.

So he was surprised, to say the least, to spot Dimitri and Hubert together: the former in a loose nightshirt and mussed hair, the latter in singed clothes, newly-healed burns still pink on his face and neck.

“She burned you?”

The two of them stopped in their tracks. Dimitri looked even more surprised than Hubert to see him, but after a moment both nodded.

“She…lost control,” Hubert said, looking aside.

“I’m going to write to Claude,” Dimitri said, voice firm and resolute. He must have been awoken and rushed right out of bed, for his eyepatch was tilting too close to his nose. “There must be something we can try, to get faster results.”

“Of course, Your Majesty.” Dedue bowed. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

Dimitri shook his head and waved a hand in dismissal. “It’s late enough as it is. El’s my problem, not yours.”

“Still, Your Majesty—”

“Dedue.” Dimitri came close. He reached up to rest his hands on Dedue’s shoulders, squeezing them gently. Dedue couldn’t help but feel a rush of heat in his face. Dimitri hardly ever touched him so freely. But whether it was the late hour, or the potency of emotion Edelgard always awoke in him, he’d broken from his shell for a moment. Dedue could see only tenderness in his eye. “I appreciate it. But let me handle this.” With one last squeeze, he released him and rejoined Hubert. “We can discuss the next steps in the morning.”

Dedue managed to collect himself enough to bow again, murmuring his assent.

The last glimpse he got was of Hubert, who looked back over his shoulder before they turned the corner and disappeared from view.

* * *

“Well,” Judith mused when Claude finished reading the letter aloud. “Do we have to start asking each other questions? Things-only-the-real-you-would-know?”

“No,” he sighed, setting the paper aside to rub his face with his hands. “We don't have to bother. Edelgard has what she wanted already: to get out. They could’ve killed the real Dimitri, after all.”

“Repaying one life debt doesn’t mean she isn’t after yours,” Judith countered.

“Please. Who on earth would want to impersonate me and rule over a luncheon table of bickering lords? I _wish_ Edelgard would wear my skin for a day.” He glanced down at the war table, at the little peg that marked Shambhala. “Maybe I’ll ask her to. Hubert does owe me a rather big favor.”

Judith scoffed. “They’d be insane to return. If they had any sense, they’d hop on the next ship west and sail away from this mess of a continent.”

“Not insane. Devoted. There’s a difference.”

“Devoted? To their cause?”

“Just devoted.” Claude tweaked the marker, watching it wobble on its base. “And because of that, I’d know them anywhere.”

**Author's Note:**

> me Sunday morning: should I do Hegelbert Weekend for a fun freewrite break?? surely I can put something together quick!!  
> me Monday night, having drowned in folk music for countless hours: youuuuuuuu dumb bitch……
> 
> anyway! whew. I sure did write this, freely.


End file.
